Kelly's Pond, former anglers' delight in Stratford, to be restored

What was once a popular fishing hole in Stratford will soon be restored to its glory days.

For years, Kelly's Pond in Pondside Park was a favourite hangout for anglers, but sediment from the construction of subdivisions upstream has silted up the pond.

"It's just not a healthy system right now and we would really like to kind of bring it back to where people can enjoy the recreational aspect of it as well as improve the quality of the water," said Kelley Arnold, co-ordinator of the Stratford Area Watershed Improvement Group.

The pond is currently only about a metre deep in most areas, except for a small hole about two-metres deep, said Kelley.

The group hopes that by dredging a five-metre-deep channel next spring, it might once again become a fish habitat.

Information previously gathered by Dalhousie students is now being compiled, said Arnold.

"They looked into all the basic water chemistry, everything from pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, right down into bathymetry, which is kind of the bottom of the pond, what's going on with the bottom of the pond within the sediment and things like that," she said.

"They went along with canoes and just put the pieces down to see how deep the water is. And as well they came in heavy storm events. They would rush over from Halifax to kind of see what was going on here and levels of sedimentation, a lot of silt."

The town will help the watershed group with manpower, equipment and money.

"The town, of course, sees this pond as sort of a centrepiece of a fairly larger green space. It's highly visible and at the town we take the environment very seriously and we want to ensure that we have a very ecologically balanced, environmentally stable pond here," said Mayor David Dunphy.

"We want to move this project forward, certainly with funding, and work with them to ensure the project gets started hopefully in 2016."

The amount of funding will likely be outlined in the town's budget later this month, said Dunphy.

He said they are also looking to tap into other funding sources such as the provincial and federal governments.